Mother
by SgtMac
Summary: 14 years ago, Emma led everyone on a mission to save her presumed "happy ending". Not everyone who went to Hell came back: Regina assumed a horrible fate so that everyone else could escape. Her loss cracked her family down the middle; now, on Henry's 28th birthday, an estranged mother and son will try to find forgiveness while realizing that Regina's story isn't quite over.


**A/N:** So let's set the stage so that I only have to do this just this one time and we can carry on with the rest of the "fun stuff". This story that will take place both in the Underworld, after the Underworld and fourteen years in a much bleaker future.

 **Relationships:** Henry/Regina, Henry/Emma, Regina/Emma are the big ones. This will also feature Snow/Regina and Snowing/Henry and Snowing/Emma. Robin and Hook will be involved as this is being set exactly post 5x11 and fits roughly emotionally within the show's existing on-air canon (you'll see what I mean by that as we go along, but if you're adverse to the men, just take care to watch the warnings and I'll try to spell out their appearances for you, but they really do need to be here for this story to make sense). It should be noted that this is not a romantic piece in the conventional sense. While this will swing back around to the idea of hope rekindled and a weird kind of happy ending eventually, at its core, this is about mothers and their children and a deep relationship between two women which goes beyond the labels of friendship, lover and soulmate. This is about how when someone who is critical to your every existence is ripped out of your life, deep and unimaginable wounds are left behind. And yes, this is about forgiveness.

 **Character Death:** Yes, obviously. Very sorry. Please' don't go into this expecting a magic wand to bring the Queen back to our world as a leaving breathing person permanently - it's not going to happen. I know that that's kind of ripping a bit of hope out for you all by myself, but it's not honest to what I'm trying to tell (not to say that there won't be some big and little Regina related surprises along the way because there very much will be). But in this case, unfortunately, Regina really did die down in the Underworld. All of that said, her story (and her stories with Henry and Emma individually and their big story together as a family) is not at all over.

 **Chapter Warnings:** Discussion about drug and alcohol abuse and self-harm in the sense of lack of self-care. And yes, Robin is in this chapter and there is talk of Hook.

 _Your feedback is very much appreciated! I know this is an unconventional and kind of dark story, but hopefully it's a worthy one. :D_

* * *

There are times when he's still more than a little tickled by the sight of his own breath gusting out in front of him like a cloud of white smoke (and then it reminds him of her and he thinks of her whirling her hands around and there being puffs of purple and…well doesn't everything remind him of her?) He really tries not to do cigarettes anymore, but at times his need for something in his hands and the curiosity about seeing a whispering proof of life physically in front of his eyes takes over for him, and he finds himself reaching for one.

There's something about recognizing how invisible so many things actually are.

Things such as hope and faith.

And love and loss.

Sure, death is tangible and all too real, but everything else…

Clutching two steaming cups of coffee tight in his hands, he shakes his head and sighs in irritation, annoyed at himself for letting his mind run away from him. Angrily, he tells himself not to do this. Not today.

Don't go down this road.

Oh, but he knows he will.

Still, he tells himself that he's been doing so much better; he hasn't had a cigarette in three weeks and he has been more or less clean and off the really really bad shit for almost a year now and he's back to writing (most days, anyway) and feeling like his brain isn't just a mess of deep dark thoughts and memories that never seem to leave him completely alone.

He's been doing better.

He thinks she would be proud of him.

Maybe.

But those are thoughts for later; for now, his focus is on getting through today.

"Henry, lad," the doorman says as he approaches his apartment building, and he smiles up at the man.

"Dex," he greets, nodding his head at him as he opens the glass door to the building. Dex is a tall bearded white guy with soft blue in his late sixties and the word around the building is that there's not a single story that he hasn't seen. No one quite knows Dex's own tale or really anything about him at all, but there's an odd kind of compassion in his eyes that Henry finds rather comforting.

"Your birthday today, I heard."

"You heard right. Twenty-eight," Henry answers with as much of a smile as he can manage, shuffling and punching his hands deep into the pockets of his faded blue jeans, his fingers gripping at the inside fabric and pulling at it anxiously. There are days when everything everywhere hurts…even a simple number.

But God, that number especially.

And this day especially.

This fucking day.

"Well congratulations. Any plans for the night? A special someone, perhaps?"

Henry laughs loudly at that, and doesn't tell Dex what the elderly man who sees everyone come and go around here already knows: there hasn't been anyone here with him for almost six months now.

The sad reality is that the boy who had once had the heart of the truest believer is now not an especially easy person to be around and he's an even harder one to love - he might even say nearly an impossible one. Oh, there had been a woman not long ago and she'd tried to help through the mess that he'd been (she had reminded him far too much of Emma and how when Emma had first come into all of their lives, all she'd wanted to do was help and make a difference and have faith that anyone could change for the better, and just that very thought had been the beginning of the end of the relationship, to be honest), but as it turns out, smart and beautiful ladies with their whole brilliant lives in front of them don't actually want to be dragged down by a boyfriend with massive mommy issues and chemical dependencies; they want more and deserve more.

She'd been there with him in the hospital on the night that he had almost died in a filthy shit-stained gas station bathroom from a heroin overdose. She'd held his hand through his terrible withdrawals, and then she had been there to celebrate with him the publication of his first book after he'd gotten himself completely clean.

And then she had stood there and watched in horror as he had drunkenly trashed the apartment that they had been living together in after returning from seeing Emma. She'd left him the next day saying as she'd closed the trunk to her car, "I was willing to be there with you as long as you were trying to be something better, but you're not and I can't do this, Henry. I can't. I hope that one day you find Henry again."

He hadn't known what that had meant then, and he still doesn't know.

And he sure as hell doesn't know what "better" actually means.

After all that he's been through and seen, he's not sure it's a word that actually exists.

"No," Henry says finally, realizing that Dex is still looking at him, patiently awaiting a response. "No lady and no plans. I'll probably just stay in. Maybe just order some Chinese and a watch a movie or two."

"Not a bad idea. I believe there's a _Harry Potter_ marathon on this evening," Dex offers up.

"Eh, magic isn't really my thing. Not since I was a little kid, and too stupid to know better," Henry replies, and wonders why it is that this day can't ever pass without everything reminding him of what no longer exists for him. He forces another smile, then hands Dex one of the cups. "Keep your hands warm, man; it's getting colder out here."

"It is; I hear it's supposed to get well under freezing by this evening; never did take much of a fondness for the cold since coming out this way," Dex acknowledges with a weary long-suffering kind of sigh. He gratefully takes the cup and rubs his weathered palms against the warmed-up cardboard. "Happy Birthday, Henry; hope it's everything that you need."

He looks back at Dex, seeing the man's blue eyes gazing back at him, curious and watchful, but not at all judging. Every now and again, he's struck by almost a weird feeling that he knows this man and has met him before; it passes quickly, but the wonder about if this man has really lived so much life - clearly both good and bad - that he is able to view people without seeing the worst of them before the best never does. How after so many losses and horrors, how does anyone ever get back to believing instead of doubting?

There was a time almost a year ago, in the middle of his second attempt to get clean and try to get his life back on-track (after his girl friend had left him and after he'd seen Emma and seen the cuts and bruises and the sharp edges that had never been there before, the shadows beneath her eyes telling him of how little she ever slept or do anything besides keep relentlessly moving just to move; her smile hadn't been real, but she'd tried to talk to him like they still were something to each other, and he'd rejected her outright, told her he didn't want to be near her) when he'd been just tired of it all. Done with and wondering if maybe anything had to be better than this? He'd been wondering if maybe it wouldn't have been better for everyone if the overdose had been successful. And besides, wouldn't not being here mean that he could –

But then there had been Dex finding him on the street corner as he'd been standing there smoking and considering -seemingly coming out of nowhere. Henry had been on something of a Dead Man's Walk, and there had been Dex telling him that his car wouldn't start and would Henry perhaps mind keeping an old man company until the tow truck showed up? He hadn't even known that Dex could drive, and most of him had just wanted to refuse him, anyway. But then Dex had started talking and his voice had been low and calm and the next thing Henry had known, he'd been sitting next to him. Listening to stories about a life lived so very long ago. Hearing about children and family and hope and he thinks even now that he should have laughed at all of these things, but Dex had been smiling as he spoke, like he understood real beauty.

He'd talked about the blue of the sky and the green of the grass like they'd been revelations to him.

The whole thing had been extraordinarily strange, but most especially the part where Dex had suddenly gotten up and said in a loud booming voice, "Oh, the truck is here; I suppose that will do, then. Be well, Henry, I'll see you bright and early in the morning, now won't I?" and then he had ambled away down the street. Whether the old man knows it or not, though, he'd kept Henry from looking for some kind of end.

Henry had seen the sunrise because an old man had told him stories all night.

One of these days, Henry thinks maybe he'll figure out a way – something more valuable and meaningful than a coffee cup to keep his hands warm – to thank Dex for being there when he had needed it most.

For now, though, his thoughts are on getting upstairs and into the quiet of his apartment.

And away from this horrible day.

Instinctively knowing that it could never be so easy, he steps into the elevator, pushes a button and drops his eyes down to the ground until the doors open again.

* * *

 _"This is where we say that we're unimpressed with Hell, right?" Emma says in a thin high tone that's probably meant to sound like a joke as they step through the swirling portal and into a world full of red and black and smoke that lifts high into the air. They're in the middle of a cemetery, the stone door to a vault (not his mother's, Henry observes with relief) serving as their way into this new land that they're in._

 _He watches as Mom turns and regards Emma with a lifted eyebrow and a bemused quirk of her lip. "We're in the Underworld, Miss Swan; what exactly were you expecting to find here? Dancing demons perhaps?" Despite the use of the title which Henry knows Emma has come to abhor, the words are teasing and light._

 _Meant to reassure and not to bite._

 _"Maybe? I don't know; just…something more than this, I guess. But, I suppose this is what the Underworld looks like, right?" she says this with a nervous chuckle as she turns to look at the rest of the group – her family - that had followed her down here to rescue Hook. Her eyes look soft and wet to Henry, and for a moment, he thinks that she seems weirdly stuck and almost overwhelmed; maybe a part of her hadn't really believed that they could put this plan into action. Maybe a part of her had lost some of that faith that has so encircled this family for so long, and maybe it hadn't just come back because the red leather jacket had._

 _But they're here now, Henry thinks, and that means they can do this. He's afraid, but also excited. Because really, is there a greater Hero's Quest than saving a lost love? Is there something more noble than putting everything on the line for True Love? Isn't that the grand aspiration? Isn't that what his family does?_

 _Yes…yes, it is. They save each other. He's never especially thought of Hook as being family, but Emma loves him and love is the most powerful magic of all (per Mom, per Grandma) so this is the mission._

 _"This might look like nothing especially frightening or evil, but as we well know, dearie, looks can be quite deceiving," Gold states, that weird look in his eyes that he sometimes gets when he's around the whole family. The one that seems to suggest that he thinks they're all idiots and maybe he's an idiot for being anywhere close to them and not just turning them into frogs for his own sick amusement. He turns to Mom and says in a softer less combative voice, "We should be on the look-out; the lack of a greeting party is –"_

 _"Concerning. I thought so, too," Mom admits, a hand winding through her hair. She scowls when she pulls it back to find a clump of dirt already settling within it; to call it humid and sticky down here would be an understatement. Henry imagines that it won't be long before they're all shedding a bit of their clothing._

 _Assuming they're down here that long; he imagines that that's not the plan._

 _"Regina?" Robin queries, his hand moving to her elbow and then hovering there without quite touching. She favors him with a smile, but she's clearly distracted, her eyes scanning the ugly horizon carefully._

 _"They're right," Gram observes glancing across a row of tombstones, her eyes growing curiously wide for a moment or two as they sweep past names (Henry sees one that says Johanna and this is familiar to him but he can't immediately place who that might be). "We're crashing Hell, and no one seems to care."_

 _"Unlikely," Gold tells her. "He most certainly knows that we're here."_

 _"He?" Emma asks. "He as in the Devil?" She frowns at that, the war in her mind between what a sensible person would believe in and what she knows to be true now that she's lived so much life with this weird family of hers once again raging. Henry wonders if a day will ever come when she just believes._

 _He supposes that that's his job - to make this whole family believe._

 _They don't see it, but he puffs himself up just a little bit at that._

 _He might not be the Author anymore, but he thinks he can still be a hero._

 _"Hades," Mom corrects absently. Then, as if collecting herself, "But my guess? He's waiting for us to come to him. And he likely knows we have to. We want something that he has." She looks at Emma. "Tell me you didn't actually think that we'd just run in here, grab your pirate, split your heart and run out?"_

 _"Okay, it sounds really stupid when you say it like that. But, sometimes a snatch and grab really is the best way to get in and get out." She offers a slightly sheepish smile, and as always Mom seems to fold to it almost immediately, pulled along by the strong trust and faith that exists between them. Henry doesn't really understand this thing that seems to have built where once there was hate, but he's glad of it; they're stronger together, he believes, and he knows that down here as a team, there's no way they don't succeed._

 _"If you say so," Mom drawls and then moves away, her eyes flickering around and settling for entirely too long on entirely too many of the massive tombstones (he scans these names with her, but none of them are at all familiar to him). Watching her carefully, he thinks that she looks upset, her jaw set tight and hard._

 _"Mom?" Henry prompts as he moves towards her._

 _"I really wish you weren't here," she says softly, her words almost a broken whisper._

 _"You – what?" He shakes his head and moves closer, touching her arm so that she turns around and looks at him. "Look, I know, you're worried about me getting hurt down here, but, Mom –"_

 _"I'm not worried about that, sweetheart; no one is ever going to hurt you, Henry," she tells him, her voice hard and emphatic and so very strong, and then she's looking at Emma for confirmation, and the nod is immediate and he thinks he sees Mom exhale in relief even though he knows that she scarcely needs the back-up to protect him. "They will go through every single one of us - through me - for that to happen." Her voice falters and softens, the confidence leaving it. "But…there are things…people down here…"_

 _"I know who you were," he assures her._

 _"No," she answers, her eyes on the tombstones again. "You don't." And then she's walking away from him again, moving towards the edge of the grass. Emma and Robin follow after her, taking a place on either size of her, the others standing just a few feet behind them as they observe the road outside the cemetery._

 _"What are you thinking?" Emma asks._

 _"I'm thinking they most certainly know that we're here, but I don't feel any magical barriers."_

 _"You said he wants us to come to him," Grams reiterates._

 _Mom nods. "And I'm pretty sure that he does, but we should probably check just to be sure. I would hate for one of us to get accidentally incinerated. I do believe the plan is for all of us to make it back up, yes?"_

 _"That's not just the plan," Emma insists, her voice suddenly becoming hard in a way that unsettles Henry – it reminds him entirely too much of the tone she'd used while she'd been the Dark One, unflinching and almost disturbingly cold and unemotional. "That's what's going to happen; we're all going home."_

 _"This should do, yes?" Robin asks them, holding up a small ball-sized rock for their inspection; Mom looks it over and nods, and then in one quick motion, she takes it from him and hurls it forward. She's got quite the arm on her and so the rock flies a good distance before falling to the asphalt. Unharmed in any way._

 _Mom concentrates for a moment, frowning deeply before she looks over at Emma and then Gold, her eyes crinkling a bit right around the edges (Henry wonders if it's possible to have a headache down here, and thinks that it probably is), "Can I presume that neither one of you feel anything else, either?"_

 _"What should I feel?" Emma asks. "I mean everything here feels…wrong."_

 _"That's how it should feel; contrary to what you and your family might think, the Underworld is not a place of dreams and hope, Miss Swan," Gold tells her, his voice solemn and grave all at once; it sends chills up Henry's spine.. "But no, it would seem there's no shield in place; we should be safe to proceed."_

 _"Then let's do this," Gramps nods, seeming happy to finally have something to do, and then with all the boldness of his princely title, he steps forward, taking a deep breath as he steps across to the asphalt._

 _Nothing happens._

 _He turns around and holds his hands out like he's just won some kind of grand prize._

 _Grams chuckles, a bright smile appearing. "Okay. Next stop, we find Hook and -"_

 _"Split my heart," Emma murmurs, a frown suddenly creasing her face._

 _"Tell me you're not having second thoughts about this, Swan," Mom asks (Henry wonders about the many different ways that Mom refers to Emma, and thinks that maybe one day he'll figure the intent out of each)._

 _"A bit late for that, don't you think?" She shakes her head (and Henry wonders if that was a lie). "We're here, and we're doing this." She reaches out and places her hand lightly on Henry's back to guide him. He moves into it, but his eyes glance back towards Mom; she's still looking around, the weird fear still there._

 _No, she's not just afraid, he realizes with something of a start; she's terrified._

 _His tough as nails and afraid of absolutely no one mother is downright frightened._

 _He thinks to ask her why, thinks to reassure her, but he knows that if he even tries to, she'll just flip things around on him and do the opposite and therefore will end up comforting him instead; he knows that she will never allow him to take care of her. He knows that neither of his mothers will ever allow for that._

 _So instead, Henry simply watches silently from a few feet away as his mother collects herself, draws herself up strong and bold and brave and smiles at him with a dangerous determined glint in her eyes. To Emma, she then says, "All right, let's go save your pirate, and get the – " she chuckles. "Hell out of here."_

* * *

His nearly four thousand dollar a month apartment is a fucking mess.

The downside of not caring about something as purposeless as cleaning.

Ah, but most people would just say such messiness is a quirk of his nature. He's a published writer with five best-selling fantasy books to his name (his forte is writing complex women dealing with guilt and remorse and God, that's so on the nose that even he sometimes hates himself for how self-indulgent he is). He's allowed to be eccentric because that's what feeds creativity. That's what his agent sells, anyway.

He imagines his agent probably isn't adding the words "drug addict who was almost on the front page of TMZ for almost OD'ing in a bathroom" and "generally depressed and unhappy dude" to any of the pitches.

Probably for the best.

Rubbing at his unshaven jaw (how many days has it been? Four? Five? He tends to lose track of such things), Henry makes his way into the kitchen and yanks open the refrigerator. And groans; he'd forgotten to put in a order for food and now what he has in there is enough beer for the whole building and pickles.

"Christ, you really are a fucking mess," he mutters, shaking his head in disgust. "Chinese it is, then." He turns towards the phone (he had a cell phone once, but it had made doing other things that he shouldn't have been doing far too easy, and well, he tells his agent that he just doesn't want to be reachable wherever he is, but they both know it's because he doesn't want the temptation of how easy it is to not be traced or tracked and to thus be doing those stupid things; these days, Henry forces responsibility and culpability onto himself) and reaches for it, stopping cold when he sees the little red light blinking happily away there.

Messages.

Three of them.

His eyes close, he breathes in and then out.

Okay, probably just Grandma and Grandpa.

And maybe Emma.

Maybe.

It's been over a year since they've seen each other, and with as horrific as that meeting had gone, neither one of them has exactly made any effort to bridge the massive gap between them. He'd told her as he'd walked out the door of the hotel room that she'd been staying in that maybe she should just let them go.

Let the idea of them ever being mother and son ago go.

He figured after weeks and months had passed without anything from her that she'd finally listened.

Maybe she'd finally moved on and –

And what? He laughs bitterly to himself. He knows that he's a goddamn mess – and had especially had been so back then when he'd been just at the beginning of trying not to wake up every morning wondering how the hell he'd found himself wherever he was – but she'd been an even bigger one than him. One look at her bruised and broken too-thin frame, a body held together by tape and glue, and he'd known that she'd just been living to die - trying every day to find a way to make up for everything and always failing.

 _("Have you been to see a doctor at least? That cut on your side looks infected."_

 _"Don't need one. It's just a little scrape. Which I took care of. Now tell me about -"_

 _"There's nothing to tell. Nothing I want to tell you, anyway. And you know what? I don't even know why the hell we're doing this, Emma. Why we're pretending that we want to be around each other."_

 _"I always want to be around you."_

 _"Hey, that makes one of us."_

 _"Well, Kid, you know where the door is."_

 _"Yeah, I do.")_

He's always thought to ask Emma why she's doing this to herself - perhaps even instead of just yelling at her about the physical nature of it all - if maybe she thinks that destroying her body and mind in order to stop really bad guys affords her some form of penance or if maybe she's just hoping she'll see Mom -

But well, all of those questions would feel just a little bit hypocritical.

"Okay, stop this. Just listen to them," he tells himself. "Stop being a shithead."

Hands shaking, he reaches out and punches the button to play the messages.

 _"Henry! Sweetheart, it's your grandma –" another voice cuts in – "And grandpa!"_

He chuckles, listening as Snow and David – and then teenage goofy-ass Neal (his heart hurts less when he thinks about his uncle these days, and it's good because only so many things can hurt all at the same time) – giddily babble out their birthday message until the beep sounds. The next message is them again.

Or Grams, anyway.

 _"I know you're probably busy with your writing - by the way, I loved your last book, but Gloria had better not be me. But, anyway, we'd love to see you when you have time. Come home for a few days if you can. Happy birthday – and sweetheart, no matter what you think, we're always here for you."_

He nods, thinking to himself that he can handle hearing from his family even if it hurts like hell, not bothering to say that there's close to no chance that he'll ever step foot in Storybrooke ever again.

A third beep sounds.

 _"Hey, Henry. Happy Birthday. I know…I know it's been awhile since we've talked, and that's my fault. I just wanted to…it doesn't matter. Everything that happened that night was…okay, I know you said not to call again, but it's your twenty-eighth birthday, and that number…I mean I was twenty-eight when you found me. I tried your cell but it said it was disconnected and I got really worried and…God, I'm screwing this up. Look, I've been here in New York for the last few days chasing down a mark, but I finished that up earlier this morning so I have time – I mean I would have made time for you even if I wasn't done– but it would be really nice to see you. Maybe take you out for dinner. If…if you're up for it. I know you don't really believe in it, but I love you, Kid. And I miss you."_

He stares at the message machine once she stops speaking, and all at once, there are a thousand different very loud and very excitable things going on in his mind. The youngest and still slightly hopeful part of him wants to replay the message until he can memorize every word that Emma has said _("I love you, Kid")_ , but the other part – the angry and hurt young man that never seems to stop barking at him - wants to pick the machine up and throw it across the room hard enough to smash it into a million different pieces.

Because this day, it means…it means nothing.

 _It means everything._

One beginning and one end.

"What am I supposed to do here?" he asks, like there's someone else in the room with him. There isn't – there never is – but he's never really gotten over trying to talk to her. Trying to hear her again and maybe even get her to talk back to him. There are days when he even thinks about going a little insane (again, but where had that led him to the last time besides the filthy floor of a bathroom and then a hospital bed with a disapproving doctor) and maybe trying to find a way to get to her, but he knows better than to even try.

There is no way.

That was a one-time special offer kind of trip.

No one else is coming back.

Maybe no one else ever should have.

* * *

 _The town looms imposing and massive above and around them, and Henry thinks he's never really seen it like this before. In his eyes, Storybrooke has always been this weirdly cozy, almost quite literally like a postcard (though he hadn't really known what that meant until Boston) kind of place to live and love._

 _This isn't that._

 _This is a town torn apart, wrecked and damaged._

 _The Clocktower, which back in actual Storybrooke he has spent far too many hours staring at, lay broken on its side in the middle of the main street, painted wooden splinters scattered in every direction. The stores are entirely different now, full of dreary things about death and darkness instead of bread and flowers._

 _Years later, with an adult mind and vocabulary, he will think back to this moment and describe it as being a "literal cloud of hopelessness and despair draped across the town like an ominous slow-rolling fog."_

 _Dramatic, but accurate._

 _And then there's the Bug._

 _It's up on blocks, burnt and mutilated – an iconic symbol of hope torn asunder._

 _He thinks for a moment about Superman's cape and then almost laughs out loud at the absurd if uncomfortable thought – especially when Mom looks over at him and lifts an eyebrow (she'd read an issue like that recently with him – the one where Doomsday had killed Superman and his shredded cape had been flapping in the wind). He sees her lip quirk up and it's her soft amusement that settles his nerves._

 _Because she's telling him that everything will be okay._

 _"Damn," Emma mutters, still staring at the Bug. "That hurts."_

 _"It's not your car," Gramps notes, a hand on her shoulder. "Your baby is sitting nice and safe at home."_

 _"He's right; that one looks much better than your actual…baby," Mom teases, drawing a snort of laughter from Emma; apparently Mom has decided that it's her job to reassure everyone (except herself, Henry notes and then wonders again what's going on in her mind). He watches as she moves along side Robin and gently nudges his elbow, pointing up to a massive black store sign which reads: Prince John's Parlor._

 _"Haven't though of him for a spell," Robin murmurs. "Not since –"_

 _He stops abruptly when he sees Henry watching him, but Henry fills in the blanks from the book, "Not since you had to kill him to save him from kidnapping Marian so that he could marry her against her will."_

 _Robin smiles grimly at that, and his eyes flicker past Rumple before he replies, "He died by my hand, yes," and even Henry knows that there's always more to the story than the simplest explanation. But he also knows that Robin is not going to tell the story for the same reason he'd stopped before – because they think that it's too much for him. They're in the Underworld with a whole lot of dead people, and they're still trying to shield him._

 _It's irritating; he's a big boy now and can most assuredly handle this._

 _He knows that people die._

 _He gets it._

 _His father had died._

 _Which brings up other questions, but he's not sure that he's supposed to ask any of them._

 _He thinks maybe the answers are obvious, anyway._

 _His father had been a good man and likely wouldn't have deserved to be down here in Hell with some of the other people that are here, but Hook had been….not a good person. Like his mother, Hook has done terrible things, and deserves the kind of punishment that an afterlife like this provides._

 _Right?_

 _No, not so much. The idea of eternal punishment (especially when he starts thinking about it in relation to his mother) is something he can't quite wrap his mind around. Does that mean that even if they work like crazy to change, nothing they actually do matters, and they will always end up here anyway? And what if they have done too much and this is their sentence? If so, should and of them be down here to save Hook?_

 _Yes, of course, he insists to himself._

 _Because forgiveness and not punishment is what matters most._

 _"Henry?" he hears and the smile is on his lips before he's even looking up (he learned that from both of his mothers, he knows, and years later he will thinks about all the good and bad lessons that they'd taught him and wonder whether his ability to fake his way through almost any situation was either one or both of those things). But Mom, well she doesn't buy it at all, and she's peering at him with worry, her brow knit in deep concern._

 _"We're in Hell," he says, like that should explain so much._

 _"Yes," she allows. Emma moves up behind her, and then they're standing shoulder to shoulder, the arm of Mom's black coat rested against the arm of Emma's bright red leather jacket just like usual - like they're some kind of unstoppable team (they are, he immediately concludes). Like they might be able to answer any weird questions that he might have. Like they know this place and understand all of the questions of it._

 _But he thinks that they don't._

 _He thinks that they're just as confused as he is._

 _And Mom is still scared._

 _The words spill from his lips before he can stop them, "You're afraid."_

 _He winces and waits for an angry denial._

 _She just says again with something that sounds almost like a resigned kind of sigh, "Yes."_

 _"Why?" he asks, his head tilted._

 _She swallows hard and then looks over at Emma, and they have this weird moment where he knows that they're communication between the two of them, and then Emma is nodding her head as if to reassure her that it's okay and Mom is saying softly, (he sees her glance over towards where Robin and Rumple are talking just beneath the sign and wonders if maybe Rumple knows the true story there) "Because that door over there might say Prince John's name, and that's Robin's demon to face and confront, but there are a thousand other doors down here with my name on them. And I owe every soul that exists behind them."_

 _"But they were bad people," he says immediately, without pause._

 _"So was I." Also without pause. So honest that it tears at his heart. He notices – out of the corner of his eye – how Emma and both of his grandparents move in slightly closer to his mom, almost flanking her now._

 _Henry shakes his head. "I don't understand. If you all were…what you were when you were that, then how can anyone be upset that you were just doing what you bad guys…do?" He scratches anxiously at his temple, suddenly seeming uncertain of his words and the utter gross mess of them. They'd made sense in his head: if everyone is evil at the same time, then no one should get upset that someone was. Right?_

 _But now that's said the words, they sound ridiculous and childish._

 _He thinks suddenly about a boy in the third grade that had pushed him down once on the playground; he remembers it well because he'd split the knee of his navy blue dress pants and that meant that the school would most certainly call his mom, and even back then when he'd been only eight, her love for him, and the worry that that love tended to produce had been nearly suffocating and just a little bit frightening for him._

 _But it's not his mom that he's thinking about now (not directly, anyway). No, what he remembers is angrily pushing back, and how the boy had fallen over and torn his own elbow up._

 _And how he had then been righteously angry with Henry for pushing **him**._

 _He remembers that the boy hadn't just shrugged the whole thing off and said, "Well I guess that I kind of had that coming, didn't I?" How Henry pushing **him** had seemed like an action that needed to be avenged._

 _Maybe that's Hell. Maybe everyone here thinks that they didn't have it coming._

 _Except Mom, who keeps looking around, wary and on-guard._

 _Mom who has never stopped thinking that she deserves everything she gets._

 _"It's not that easy," Gramps notes._

 _"No, it's not," Grams agrees. "But that changes nothing about our plan here."_

 _He sees Emma places a hand on Mom's shoulder, her fingers slightly pressing into the dark faux fur of her coat, and then Emma says, "She's right, Regina, don't sweat it; we'll be in and out of this literal hell-hole before the Milk-Man you stole cream from even knows you're here."_

 _It's a terrible joke, but it kind of works, and Mom snorts in amusement, and then absently pats at Emma's hand - like she's suddenly reassuring Emma; really, he thinks that he never will understand them._

 _But he does notice that Mom's eyes remain dark and troubled._

 _He thinks she probably did more than steal cream from the Milk-Man._

 _Assuming there was a Milk-Man._

 _He asks quietly, "Is everyone down here bad?"_

 _"No," Mom says immediately; he notices that Robin and Rumple have come back over from where they were standing under the sign talking, and now they're listening too, like this is some kind of weird story-time. Like they're at a summer camp. Robin moves even closer to Mom, but at the last moment holds back, and maybe it's the way Mom has her arms suddenly wrapped around her stomach. "As my mother explained it to me -" she looks at Gold, and he nods. "The Underworld is both Hell and Purgatory in many ways. Those punished to suffer eternal damnation are basically paraded around, put through torments in every kind of reality." She whirls her hand around as if to suggest that they're in one of those now. "Those who are not are usually tasked with…finding a way to move on from what they couldn't."_

 _"Which most of the time is impossible," Gold adds. "Awareness is needed to do so, and the Dead often lack the ability to see past the darkest of themselves. Even those who have done minimal harm or who were hurt by others can be…destroyed by it to such a degree that they can never find a way out of it."_

 _"So my dad could be here?" He hadn't meant to ask that, but he has to know._

 _Needs to._

 _"He's not here," Gold says softly. "Bae left our world before his time, but not without ensuring that what mattered the most to him was protected. His family. He was at peace with his decision and because he was able to protect those that he loved, he was able to move on to…a better happier final resting place." His voice is rough and grated, and Henry thinks that maybe his grandfather is sad even as he's relieved._

 _"Oh," he says. "Then, Mom, maybe a lot of those people that you -"_

 _She shakes her head and walks away; Robin follows after and then Grams is there, too, and Mom seems more annoyed than comforted by their presence, but all he can think about is that she had walked away from him and she never does that; whatever is going on in her mind, it has to be something really bad._

 _Really bad and really scary._

 _He thinks suddenly of being five and hugging her after she'd started crying while cleaning up a cut on his knee; he hadn't understood why she was crying because the cut hadn't really been that bad just kind of blood, but she had been and he recalls that he hadn't liked it all. So he'd hugged her and she'd smiled._

 _She'd smiled and it'd felt like everything had gotten brighter and better; like everything was okay._

 _He doesn't think it'll go so easy down here._

 _And everything is definitely not okay._

 _"You'll protect her, right?" he asks Emma suddenly, his voice demanding._

 _"You know I will," she promises him with a warm convincing smile. "I meant it when I said all of us. We are all getting out of here, and then we are bringing our family back together, and we're going to be happy."_

 _So fierce, so certain and so determined._

 _He nods his head. Because this Emma doesn't lie. This Emma comes through._

 _Gramps adds brightly, "She's right, Henry; we do everything as a family. Include win.""_

 _They're strong words – good words. Family proven words.  
_

 _For the first time in Henry Mill's life, he realizes he doesn't quite believe them._

 _But before he can really dwell on this, before he can really think about this disturbing reality for even a moment (and then likely disregard it because he has the heart of the truest believer and that means that his faith must be absolute) a door to a shop nearby is opening and then someone whom he hasn't seen in over two years is stepping out, accompanied by a lanky blonde man wearing an insanely expensive suit._

 _That is if Hell has a monetary system._

 _The thought flees his mind quickly, though because the newcomers are coming towards them. And the woman – his other grandmother – is smiling at them as she lifts her chin up as if to exude haughtiness._

 _"Welcome to the Underworld," she greets, her voice cheerful and yet still somehow ice cold. Her well-jeweled extremely elegant hand draped casually over the man's arm like they're just a normal couple (Henry has the thought that this is all a show and her eyes are pinched and pained and full of something dark and even nasty), the woman looks right at Mom, her face exploding into an almost sinister smile._

 _And then Mom says in a shuddering voice, which Henry will never forget, "Mother."_

* * *

He's sitting at his kitchen table – it had once cost him over five thousand dollars the day after he'd received his first royalty check and now it's all chipped up and has strange knife marks in the middle of it – staring at the phone and a half-full bottle of extravagantly expensive whiskey. He wants to down the second one.

But he's in the middle of an apartment that despite its messiness looks like he's successful and put together; despite it's chaos, it presents the visual and impression of a young man with the world completely at his feet, and yet Henry Daniel Mills knows the truth of himself better than anyone; he knows how broken he is.

And he knows that something has to give here.

Either he has to give up completely or…

"You want me to call her," he announces.

He's met with silence, the bottle and the phone.

"Yeah, I know. I'm doing it, okay? See?"

Slowly, his hand shaking (and he thinks of ways to make it all stop doing that, but he tells himself that he's stronger than those demons, stronger than the memories and the desperate need he has to feel her arms around him again), he reaches for the phone and dials a number that hasn't changed since he was ten.

Because of him.

The line only rings once.

"Henry," Emma breathes, and his heart nearly shatters at her desperation.

 _("Henry, wait. Come on, don't leave -"_

 _"Why not? What else is there for us to say, Emma? What haven't we said?"_

 _"I love you."_

 _"No, you've said that. A thousand times over. It means nothing to me. Love isn't enough, Emma; it never was.")_

"Emma," he answers after a moment. "So, about dinner?"

"Yeah," she replies, and she's laughing nervously. "Can…can you?"

Even with as hard as his heart has become over the last fourteen years, even with as much as the memories beat at him, the trepidation he hears in her scratchy voice (he guesses that she hasn't quit smoking), the certainty that he'll deny her and reject her as he has been for the last decade and a half hurts; fuck does it hurt, and he finds his hand reaching for the bottle and thinking…

But, no.

Because maybe this is when it can be different for them. Maybe this time…

He curses the hope within him that refuses to completely die.

And tries not to envision that soft smile on his adoptive mother's face because it hasn't died.

He puts his hand out and pushes the bottle away from him, ignoring the still vivid track marks on his forearm, choosing not to think about the years worth of damage he has done in the name of anger.

In the name of grief and heartbreak and betrayal and so very much sadness.

But he can't ignore it anymore; even he knows this.

"Yeah," Henry responds after a long moment where there's just uncomfortable painful silence on the phone and nothing else. Every part of him except for one is telling him not to do this – not to walk down this road with her again because it always ends up with them being even more broken than they were before.

 _("Henry-"_

 _"You know what my biggest regret is, Emma?"_

 _"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that I do. You think it's not mine, too?"_

 _"Then maybe that's a sign. Maybe it's a goddamn clue that maybe we should stop pretending that we were ever meant to be family. Because we're not. You're not my mother, and I'm sure as shit not your son."_

 _"I'm sorry. I'm so -"_

 _"That's not enough, either. Get your shit together, Emma. Or don't. I don't care anymore. I just don't."_

 _"And what about you? Since you're throwing so many goddamn rocks at me. You think I'm a mess, Kid?"_

 _"Don't call me that. I'm not a kid. Not anymore."_

 _"No, you're not. But you're still a self-righteous brat who thinks everyone owes him. I might not be her –"_

 _"You don't get to talk about her."_

 _"She mattered to me, too! She was -"_

 _"No. No, you don't. You don't. You put all of us on the line for yourself; you don't get to –"_

 _"She made the choice. She saved us."_

 _"Did she? Somehow I don't think so. But it doesn't matter; I'm done. Don't contact me. Just stay away from me.")_

The words, the anger, the horror at what had happened that night still rolls around in his mind (that had been the night he'd gone home and completely freaked out on his girlfriend, and smart woman that she'd been, she had left his ass the very next morning). He's almost called Emma a hundred times since then.

Wanting so desperately to apologize.

Wanting just as desperately just be held by her.

Knowing that they could help each other if they'd just get out of their own way.

But far too angry and hurt to even consider doing it.

He's still angry even now.

But the part of him that is so lonely and sad (and misses everything that he'd once had with his family and his two powerful fiercely strong mothers so very long ago), and the part of her which still lives in him is soft and understanding, but determined when it pushes him to do this. When it pushes him to do this.

He doesn't have any pictures of either of his moms in his apartment.

But he sees her everywhere, anyway.

Hears her in his head.

Pushing. Insisting. Warm brown eyes. Steely determination.

Annoyance that it's taking so long for him to listen.

So he says to his other mother, "All right, where do you want to meet?"

 **TBC…**


End file.
